Prop. 43 would require two-thirds approval for local special taxes, including ones put on the ballot by citizens

California voters deciding Proposition 43 on Nov. 3 will settle a question that has hung over local tax measures for nearly a decade: how many votes it takes to pass a special tax when citizens, not a city or county, put it on the ballot.

Prop. 43 would set the bar at two-thirds for every local special tax, meaning a tax dedicated to a specific service, CalMatters reports.

How the rules got muddled

In 1996 voters required two-thirds approval for special taxes, and for years it was widely assumed to cover all of them. In 2017, the state Supreme Court said the requirement covered only measures that local officials put before voters.

The court did not say what rule governs special taxes proposed by citizens, and since then several high-profile citizen-led measures have won with a bare majority, according to CalMatters.

Two examples the outlet cites would not have passed under Prop. 43: Los Angeles' 2022 tax on high-end real estate sales, which drew 58% of the vote, and a Sonoma County half-cent sales tax to pay for wildfire and other emergency response that won 62% in 2024. The measure would not reach back to undo taxes already approved.

Who supports it

The Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association helped qualify the measure. Its president, Jon Coupal, told CalMatters that Prop. 43 would make plain that every special tax faces the two-thirds bar and called the power to tax government's "most draconian power." He said Californians feel overtaxed and the state should set spending priorities before asking for more.

Supporters had raised nearly $15 million, with the California Business Roundtable's PAC supplying close to $10 million, CalMatters reported.

Who opposes it

Opponents, among them city and county officials, unions and affordable housing groups, say the change would make it harder to raise money for firefighting, schools and health care, and would let one-third of voters block a tax. Darrell Roberts, who leads the California Professional Firefighters union, described the measure in a Marin Independent Journal opinion piece as protecting "the powerful few" at everyone else's expense.

Opponents had raised $6 million, the largest single sum, $1.5 million, coming from a PAC affiliated with SEIU California.

A compromise its author opposes

The measure grew out of the fight over Los Angeles' real estate tax. A broader initiative backed by Coupal's group would have cut real estate transfer taxes statewide and repealed majority-vote taxes already on the books. Prop.

43 is the narrower version Coupal negotiated with Democratic legislative leaders to take that initiative off the ballot. Assemblymember Buffy Wicks, the Oakland Democrat who wrote the compromise language, has since called herself "adamantly opposed" to it, explaining that the choice was between a retroactive measure that put billions of dollars in local revenue at risk and a narrower amendment she still considered bad policy.

A Public Policy Institute of California survey in September found 51% of likely voters planned to vote no and 43% yes.

Sources

calmatters.org